Tech Tips: Bad Parts

Sometimes during an installation or a service call, we suspect a part may be bad. One method of troubleshooting is to simply swap parts until the problem goes away. That is typically the most efficient way to go, but we have our technicians take it one step further.

If we believe a part to be bad, we first troubleshoot it by verifying the problem with the old part and testing again to try to duplicate with the new part. As we’ve mentioned many times, the first steps MUST be to identify and duplicate the problem. If you verify by this step, we still need one final step – call technical support. A part isn’t bad until tech support says it’s bad. It is common that a setting, or some other feature that we aren’t aware of is the culprit and the part isn’t really bad.

Our Policy on Bad Parts: If our tech pronounces a part to be bad in the field, the paperwork turned in MUST document who the tech talked to at tech support (their name) and a date and time. .

These tech tips are intended to provide insights to small nuances to help with many different products we offer. It is the small attention to detail that separates an outstanding job from an OK one. Although these apply primarily to technicians, they will help others gain insight to what the technicians do – in small doses.